Businesses can be opaque. They are complex. You don't know how aircraft engines work either.
Jamie DimonThe Trump administration's economic agenda is the right agenda. Corporate taxes have been driving capital and brains and companies overseas for a decade. It has caused huge damage in investment and jobs and productivity. It was a mistake. We have to fix it. Counterintuitively, that usually helps middle-class wages, and lower-class wages, and job formation.
Jamie DimonI also think you have to be very careful. I mean, the heritage of our company is very strong, and building some of these businesses into leading players is extremely tough. You and I can both build a trading business, and it looks like you're doing OK, and it looks like I'm doing OK. But, really, I am, and you aren't. It comes down to the quality of clients, quality of systems, quality of risk controls.
Jamie DimonNot every company went bankrupt. Not every bank needed TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program]. So I'm very proud that JPMorgan, throughout that time period, was completely steadfast. We bought Bear Stearns because we thought we were helping the situation. We didn't cut and run.
Jamie DimonAs a matter of fact 25% of our U.S. investment banking business comes out of our commercial bank. So it's a competitive advantage for both the investment bank - which gets a huge volume of business - and the commercial bank because the commercial bank can walk into a company and say, "Oh, if you need X, Y and Z in Japan or China, we can do that for you."
Jamie Dimon